Instant reboot problem

[sbring]

Yesterday my XP Pro SP2 PC refused to boot, saying that NTLDR was
missing. The only remotely possible cause I can think of is that I had
made some changes to BOOT.INI. I managed to start with the help of an
XP boot floppy and copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the XP CD. I also
put back the default BOOT.INI. After that I tried to boot from the HD.
However, exactly when Windows should start loading, the PC reboots. If
I boot from the floppy, Windows loads and everything works normally,
but all attempts to boot from HD results in the same instant reboots.
What should I do next?

Sven

 

[Michael Cecil]

Yesterday my XP Pro SP2 PC refused to boot, saying that NTLDR was
missing. The only remotely possible cause I can think of is that I had
made some changes to BOOT.INI. I managed to start with the help of an
XP boot floppy and copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the XP CD. I also
put back the default BOOT.INI. After that I tried to boot from the HD.
However, exactly when Windows should start loading, the PC reboots. If
I boot from the floppy, Windows loads and everything works normally,
but all attempts to boot from HD results in the same instant reboots.
What should I do next?

Sven

What, why did you change the boot.ini in the first place? The symptoms
you describe all come from the bootloader not pointing to the actual
installation location of Windows. What is your drive and partition
arrangement and what is your current boot.ini?

 

[sbring]

Sorry to have bothered you. I found out that both BOOT.INI and
NTDETECT.COM had disappeared in some way. After putting them back
everything works OK. A little mysterious; I just hope it is not some
kind of virus.

Thanks,
Sven